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Monthly Archives: December 2012

Here is a short piece dedicated to the end of the world. A sister piece in the series that includes “How to Talk to Aliens about Death” and “How to Wave a Flag”.

FEAR OF THE FUTURE

InterviewerWhat exactly is your phobia, Carlton?

CarltonWell the medical name is futurophobia.

InterviewerAnd what does that mean exactly?

CarltonIt means I’m afraid of the future.

InterviewerThe future?

CarltonYes.

InterviewerHow long have you had this phobia?

CarltonSince I was a child.

InterviewerAnd how did it start?

CarltonWhen I was five or six years old, I remember going to a friend’s house and I saw the future on the stairs. And the future was looking at me, well staring at me. I went to touch it, and it bit me. And since then I’ve always been afraid of the future.

InterviewerWhat happens if you see the future?

CarltonWell, I start to feel very nervous, my hearts beats quickly. And I have to go away very quickly from where the future is. For example, if I see the future in the street, I always cross to the other side.

InterviewerWhat do you do?

CarltonI’m a doctor

InterviewerIs your phobia a problem for you in your work?

CarltonWell, sometimes. On the rare occasion that I go to someone’s house on a housecall and they have a future, I have to ask the people to put it in another room. I can’t be in the same room as the future.

InterviewerHave you ever had any treatment for your phobia?

CarltonYes, I’ve just started going to a therapist. I’ve had three sessions.

InterviewerHow’s it going?

CarltonWell, now I can look at a photo of the future without feeling nervous or afraid. And I can touch a toy future. The next step will be to be in a room with the real future.

InterviewerDo you think you will ever lose your phobia of the futures?

CarltonI hope so. I’m optimistic. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll be able to live in the future.

My first foray into speculative fiction is now available for your reading pleasure.

Be forewarned of some proofreading mishaps, there are some real howlers in there. All in all though, I’d say it’s a fairly competent piece of commercial genre fiction, if by no means earthshaking. What I mean to say is: Hell, it’s a start.

In theory, my story was supposed to go live at NewMyths.com on the 1st of December. Well, today is Monday and hopefully itll be posted eventually. Until then, you might find this entertaining:

Almost two years ago now, I decided rather abruptly that I was going to write a science-fiction novel.

I was mainly inspired by my friend Juan, who had written one in a two or three month stretch of unemployment. Mine was going to be a post-“peak oil” thriller in which the most audacious “novum” was the idea that in the future, “football” (i.e. “soccer”) would be the most popular sport in the divided States of America.

I soon realized I’d bitten off more than I could chew, and decided I ought to try my hand with the short-story medium, you know, to sharpen my skills.

My first story idea was the fruit of a misread word on a computerscreen. My eyes saw the word “Jesuit” and interpreted it as “jetsuit”. The similarity between the two words struck me, and I started my first story with the image of a “Jesuit in a jetsuit”. I wrote a story the “logline” of which could be summarized as “witch hunt on a lunar colony”, and promptly sent a draft off to my friend Alex, who happened to be taking a course on science-fiction and fantasy at the university.

He never got around to reading it, thank goodness. It was nearly 28 pages long. Also, it sucked.

I noted in the e-mail to my friend that I was shooting for sort of a mix between Jorge Luis Borges and E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith. “Los teólogos” seen through the prism of Golden Age SF. An Inquisition led by Campbellian “competent men”. What I’d ended up with was “The Wicker Man IN SPACE”.

After many submissions and rejections, I actually got a rewrite request from one market. The editor suggested that the piece would perhaps be better if I excised the scene in which a farmhand had sex with a sheep.

I removed the scene and re-submitted, but alas, ‘twas not to be.

Finally, I sent the piece to Mr. Scott T. Barnes at NewMyths.com. He also requested a rewrite, saying that the ending was all wrong, the motivation for the main character’s action at the end was non-sensical. He suggested that I completely overhaul the second half of the story and send it back to him.

His observations were all spot on, so I obliged, and in short order, received an acceptance e-mail and a contract—my first (and only) sale. And so, dear friends, a sucky story became non-sucky (IMHO).